The Atlantic: Is Hungary's Referendum Result a Victory or a Defeat for the Prime Minister?

The EU plan to redistribute 160,000 asylum-seekers across the bloc would have resulted in 1,294 people being resettled in Hungary. But Orban strongly opposed the plan, challenged it in court, and called for a referendum. With nearly all the ballots counted in Sunday’s vote, 98 percent of voters supported Orban’s call to reject the EU plan. But turnout was 43 percent—well short of the 50 percent needed for the results to become legally binding. Orban was undeterred, however. He said he would amend Hungary’s constitution to make the decision binding. He said that though a “valid [referendum] is always better than an invalid [referendum],” the result would give him enough support to tell the EU Hungary “should not be forced to accept … people we don’t want to live with.” [...]

Ferenc Gyurcsany, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, said the low turnout showed “the people do not support the government. And this is good.”

The turnout should ease the pressure on Germany and other EU countries that—in the face of their own domestic opposition to the asylum-seekers—had pushed for an EU-wide distribution plan in order to ease the overcrowding in migrant-holding centers in Greece and Italy.

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Qizmodo: New Clean Energy Report: America May Not Be Screwed After All

Since 2008, the DOE has been tracking America’s clean energy output through a series of annual assessments. And our 2015 report card paints a rosy picture for what was the hottest year in our planet’s history. Wind and solar power, whose costs have fallen 41 to 64 percent since 2008, accounted for two thirds of all new electricity production last year. Other clean energy technologies, like grid-scale batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, are finally becoming advanced enough for practical use.

Land-based wind power is having a golden moment, with 74,000 megawatts (MW) of new turbines installed last year—enough to light up over 17 million households and save America 132 million tonnes of carbon pollution. All told, wind power production has tripled nationwide since 2008, now accounting for over 5 percent of our total electricity generation. [...]

Much of this progress can be attributed to the falling costs of the aforementioned technologies, as illustrated by the chart above. But more basic research is needed to continue driving costs down and help clean energy expand further. In particular, the DOE report highlights the need for aggressive expansion of grid-scale batteries that can store extra electricity produced on windy or sunny days for another time. Other emerging technologies, like smart building controls and fuel cells, are also expected to slim down our carbon footprint once they’re ready for prime-time.

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Quartz: Europe’s lurch to the right is bad news for women’s autonomy over their bodies

Women in Poland are walking off their jobs today, but their strike isn’t just about labor relations. The mass action is about autonomy over their bodies—namely, whether women or the government should decide if and when terminating a pregnancy is appropriate.

The issue has been fodder for a number of far-rights groups that have made gains across Europe. In France, the National Front, led by Marine le Pen, has made opposition to abortion part of their platform in the run-up to elections in May. In Germany, the far-right Alternative Fur Deutschland party, which made election gains in chancellor Angela Merkel’s home state last month, includes banning abortion in its manifesto. [...]

Abortion is legal–with various hurdles and restrictions–in most of Europe. A big exception is Ireland, where abortion is illegal in almost all cases. Irish women who need abortions travel to the UK, if they can afford it.

In the US, a vocal and violent anti-abortion movement ensures that the issue remains one of the most contentious in American politics. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the presidency, has a more moderate stance on abortion, although his running mate Mike Pence is considered a hardline anti-abortionist.

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Mental Floss: A Seattle Neighborhood Has a Statue of Vladimir Lenin, and It's Up For Sale

Considering Lenin’s legacy of oppression and mass executions, the 16-foot, seven-ton bronze statue doesn’t sit well with all residents. It was originally brought to Seattle by Lewis Carpenter, a Washington resident who saved it from the scrapyards of Poprad, Slovakia. Arguing that it was a work of art that deserved to be preserved, he purchased it and brought it back to the U.S.

Carpenter died in 1994, not long after shipping the statue to Issaquah, Washington, where he planned to install it in front of a restaurant he was set to open. A year later, it made its way to Seattle, where it was displayed as a piece of public art, just one block south of the Rocket, another Cold War relic-turned-artwork. Carpenter’s family still owns the statue of Lenin, but would love to get it off their hands. There’s an entire Facebook page devoted to tearing it down, and it’s regularly vandalized by people who paint the statue’s hands blood red.

In 1995, the statue was put up for sale for $150,000, with the proceeds scheduled to benefit a local arts organization, but no buyer came forward. By 2015, the price had been raised to $250,000—or best offer, as the The Seattle Times reported. Whether it will actually ever be sold is another question.

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The New York Times: The Problem With the Islamic Apocalypse

This prophecy comes from hadiths, or sayings, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, a literature that is regarded as less definitive than the Quran, but is still influential in shaping Islamic doctrine. According to certain hadiths, the apocalypse will come in stages. In the first, the world will be filled with injustice, and Muslims will be oppressed. Then two saviors will arise: “the awaited one,” or Mahdi, a divinely guided caliph who will unite and empower Muslims, followed by a bygone prophet who will come back to earth to support the Mahdi and defeat evil. This prophet will not be Muhammad, as one could have expected, but Jesus, praised in the Quran as the Messiah and the “Word of God.”

Many Christians also await the Second Coming of Jesus, so this might sound to them like good news. But Islamic literature seems to suggest that Jesus will return to abolish Christianity and confirm the truth of Islam. A much-quoted hadith, to which the Dabiq headline was alluding, says, “The Son of Mary will soon descend among you as a just ruler; he will break the cross and kill the swine.” The usual interpretation of this prophecy is that when Jesus comes back, he will put an end to his own worship, symbolized by the cross, and re-establish the dietary laws that Christianity abandoned but Jews and Muslims still observe.

Not every Muslim believes such apocalyptic prophecies, most of which don’t exist in the Quran. Most of those who believe in them would also not have any sympathy for the ferocious, brutal Islamic State. Yet Islamic apocalypticism is still a powerful force. According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, half of Muslims or more in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is “imminent,” and could happen in their lifetime. The Islamic State just goes further by claiming that it is bringing the prophecies to life.

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The Guardian: Will Theresa May be the next Tory leader to be bulldozed by the Europhobes?

This is the tribe overwhelmingly responsible for the referendum result, not mainly Labour voters, not the young, but these older folk of the shires. In their migrant-fearing yet migrant-free Tory strongholds, this is what they yearned for. But their vision isn’t Liam Fox’s globalised unfettered free trade: theirs is the drawbridge little England (and Wales) he calls protectionist. “We can go back to making things for ourselves, train up our own people,” hopes Mrs H. They clap every reminder that they are on the stairway to Brexit heaven. [...]

The cards are all in the EU’s hands once article 50 is triggered, with only two years to settle not just exit, but an interim trade deal, pending a tortuous deal with 53 countries the EU already trades with. Every government and a majority of MEPs has to agree – those MEPs who have endured Nigel Farage’s outrageous insults all these years. [...]

Will May’s government stop bribing the old and depriving the young? She promises a government “small, strong and strategic” and size matters: Osborne wanted a very small state, under 35% of GDP, 10% below any equivalent countries. No answers yet.

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Quartz: There’s one main difference between Chinese and Mexican immigrants who come to the US illegally

In the United States, murderers, rapists, and others who have been charged with a federal crime are entitled to court-appointed lawyers if they cannot afford one. But the government is under no such obligation to provide professional legal representation to immigrants facing deportation, because they are facing civil, not criminal, charges. And that often means that even children in immigration court are left to defend themselves against trained attorneys representing the government and arguing for deportation.

A new study by the American Immigration Council, which advocates for immigrants’ rights, looked at 1.2 million deportation cases between 2007 and 2012 and found that only 37% of immigrants facing removal secure legal representation. Those who were held in detention centers, prisons, or jails, and unable to travel to an attorney’s office or pay legal fees, were even less likely to be represented by a lawyer in court—only 14% secured an attorney, compared with 66% for non-detained immigrants.

Both detention rates and representation rates varied greatly based on nationality. Looking at the 15 most common countries of origin in removal proceedings from 2007 to 2012, immigrants from Mexico were least likely to be to represented by counsel—only 21% had a lawyer—and, with a detention rate of 78%, the most likely to be detained. Chinese nationals, who are most likely to be represented—92% had a lawyer—were detained only 4% of the time.

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The Washington Post: For many LGBTQ people, even a routine doctor visit can be a ‘degrading experience’

“To treat me, you need to know who I am,” says Liz Margolies, founder and executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network. I have firsthand experience with doctors not knowing fully who I am: At my local hospital, the patient information form I filled out years ago – and which still is being used – lists only “single,” “married,” and “divorced” as options for marital status. There’s no option for “partnered,” “widowed,” or “separated,” all of which give health-care professionals much-needed information about an individual’s support system (or lack thereof). That’s not exclusively an LGBT issue, since it affects people in many different life situations, but a more expansive list of choices would provide a conversation-starter about orientation and identity.

“Intake forms are a powerful and early indicator of the welcome LGBT [people] can expect in a health care setting,” says Margolies. At most facilities, the form allows for only “male” and “female” when it comes to gender, which completely erases anyone who identifies as transgender or intersex.

And that’s just the waiting room. According to a study by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 37 percent of transgender Americans have experienced discrimination in a hospital or doctor’s office. Meanwhile, a staggering 80 percent of first-year medical students expressed some form of bias against lesbians and gays, reported the National Institutes of Health in 2015.

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The Guardian: EU commission still refuses UK talks before article 50 triggered

The commission, which will run Brexit talks for the EU, reiterated its refusal to negotiate before article 50 is triggered, which the prime minister has promised will happen by before the end of March. “I cannot go an inch beyond the ‘no negotiations without notification’ principle,” said Margaritis Schinas, the chief spokesman for the commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker. [...]

Countering this view, one European diplomat said it was in the interests of the EU27 to avoid preparatory talks, because it would mean more focused discussions and unity among countries. He said: “The whole Brexit business is bad for the EU. Very clearly, all this is not going to be a joyful ride, but I am pretty confident that avoiding pre-negotiations is good for the EU27.” [...]

He expects Britain’s exit negotiations will be concluded within the two-year timeframe. Both sides had an incentive to wrap up divorce talks in two years, he said: for the EU it was important to complete talks before European elections in May or June 2019, while the UK would have the advantage of being able to sign trade deals with other countries by making a relatively fast exit.

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